


(Loving Him Was) Red

by yespolkadot_kitty



Category: Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: F/M, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Songfic, fuck the finale, our favourite witnesses
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-07
Updated: 2016-07-27
Packaged: 2018-07-22 04:54:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7420747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yespolkadot_kitty/pseuds/yespolkadot_kitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Songfic from Taylor Swift's "Red."</p><p>Forced proximity leads to arguments; arguments lead to flaring passions, flaring passions lead to - well, you get the idea.</p><p>Ichabbie forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The finale will never be canon to me, and I suspect many of you feel the same.

 

_Loving him was like trying to change your mind once you're already flying through the free fall_

 

“And then I turned him over and cuffed him. The long stakeout was a drag, but the collar was more than worth it, especially as-”

Luke paused in his story and waved his hand slowly in front of Abbie’s face. “Abs? You in there?”

Abbie blinked, realising she’d drifted off somewhere in the middle of Luke’s tale about a drug bust he’d staked out last night. Someone had needed to go on the stakeout and Luke had explained he had drawn the short straw.

When he’d first called and suggested that they meet for a drink, she’d jumped at the chance to get away from her stuffy FBI paperwork. It seemed that for every adrenaline-fueled adventure she embarked upon with the Feds, there were three adventures’ worth of paperwork.

She hadn’t signed up for _paperwork._ But then, she supposed, the non-FBI antics of Sleepy Hollow kept her busy when work was quiet. Sometimes she even felt like she went to work for a rest.

“Sorry, Luke.” She stilled her hand on her bottle of beer – she’d been absently-mindedly peeling off the label and it hung halfway off the tall brown glass vessel. “It’s great to hear what’s going on at the local PD. I’m just tired.”

That was half true. The other half of her was pre-occupied with tall, dark and British in the corner.

The house had been empty when she’d left, jacket hanging off one shoulder, the evening warm, a light breeze teasing the ends of her loose hair. She assumed her housemate, fellow witness, whatever the _hell_ he was, had retreated to the Archives or had gone out with his History Society buddies.

But sometime after she’d sat down with Luke, Abbie had caught a whiff of a familiar, comforting smell. The smell of wool in July. The smell of artisan ale, served in a glass, not by the bottle. To her credit, she hadn’t turned around for a _full_ half hour. And when she had, she’d been completely unsurprised to see him in the corner, sitting low in the big, high-backed chair, his feet on the table, long legs bisected by those ridiculous boots that had somehow become as much as part of him as his blueflower earl grey, as his archaic manner of speaking.

In his hands he held a battered copy of _The Collected Poems of John Donne._ His gaze was cast down into the pages of the open book, brilliant blue gaze hidden. Despite the dark corner of the bar, a little light made its way into his hiding place, picking out the metal edge of a coat button; the shorter ends of his hair, the circular rim of his beer glass.

When it came to him, she seemed unable to ignore even a single detail; as if her senses were on super-alert.

Shame that her senses  had remained that way when he’d taken off for an epic nine month journey without so much as a postcard. Now that he’d come back, now that they were sharing a house, she couldn’t escape him. But nor could she escape the niggling feeling that he might disappear again at any moment, leaving her to her solitude. Leaving her to confront the feeling she downright refused to name. The one that had her alternately crying into her pillow or snaking her hand into her panties, biting her lip as she imagined how his would feel on her naked skin.

“I’m sure the Feds are working you double time,” Luke said sympathetically.

Abbie sighed inwardly. Luke was a nice guy. It hadn’t worked before but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t work again between them. “I appreciate the break. Thanks for suggesting this.”

_Losing her was blue like I'd never known_

Ichabod read the same line of Donne for the twentieth time and wondered two things. How long the Lieutenant would punish him, and at the same time, if any punishment would ever be enough?

He shouldn’t have left her the way he had. But God’s teeth, he’d needed it. Needed the solitude; needed to sever his ties with his dead wife the way he’d severed the length of his hair.

Absentmindedly he ran his hand through the shortened locks, the change still didn’t ring true to him, but neither did living with _Agent_ Mills. Everything was strange. Her voice from the bathroom when she sang in the shower. Her handwriting on magnetic fridge notes. Her hairdryer lying on the living room floor when she was getting ready for work in a hurry. Her damned smell, not perfume but somehow very addictive, _everywhere._

He started on his second beer and marvelled at how even alcohol couldn’t dull his desire for her. Nothing, it seemed, had that power. The demons in and around Sleepy Hollow did their best, but even witnesses had to sleep sometime. And with sleep came the dreams. Abbie riding him, her glorious hair spread out over her slender shoulders; the line of her neck taut, her head thrown back with abandon. Her mouth on his; his name on her lips.

Cursing silently, he turned the page in the poetry book he was no longer reading. He had come to the tavern to be alone, hoping the Lieutenant had an evening in with the Netflix planned. No such luck. Not only had she come here but she had brought Mr Morales with her.

The other man was, Ichabod thought miserably, a much better candidate for her affections than he was. Morales didn’t wear outmoded clothes or use archaic words. He wasn’t overly fond of tea and he had a modern job in the modern world, a job he, by all accounts, excelled at. He had many friends and was liked by his superiors. He was even handsome, objectively.

Ichabod hated him with the fervent passion of a hundred fiery suns.

He wasn’t sure if Abbie had seen him, here in the corner, hiding like nothing more than a common brigand. However, if he got up to refill his glass, she’d definitely see him. His height had the habit of drawing attention. And the very last thing he wanted the good Lieutenant to think was that he’d come here to _spy_ on her and her beau.

 _Her beau._ The thought made him want to take a long walk off Sleepy Hollow’s nearest short cliff. He took another sip of his ale, wishing for something much stronger.

When the last call bell rang, his gut untwisted with relief, particularly when Luke and the Lieutenant stood up together. Ichabod wished he had missed the protective way Morales’ hand went to the small of Abigail’s back. When they reached the door, he stood himself, planning to leave by the alternate exit.

As he did so, he heard them talking around the corner outside and paused, feeling uncomfortably like a voyeur, but simultaneously reluctant to reveal his position.

“I could drive you home,” Morales suggested.

Ichabod tensed. Cad. Probably hoping for an invitation inside for “coffee.” Even he, despite the acclimating he still had yet to achieve, knew what an evening invite for coffee meant.

“I’ve got an early briefing tomorrow,” Abbie countered. “But thanks. And I can walk. It’s only two blocks.”

A pause. Ichabod hoped to all Hell that it wasn’t a meaningful pause. Or a body-parts-in-close-proximity-pause.

_God’s wounds, I sound like my father._

He hated his father. He hated himself.

He hated this whole godforsaken situation and would give his eyeteeth to be back in the Archives, poring over ancient texts with a large mug of tea at his elbow.

“Sure,” Morales said at length. “Catch up soon, though?”

Not if Ichabod could help it.

“Sure,” Abbie replied in an easy tone.

He heard footfalls – heavier than Abbie’s – and a car door opening and closing, then an engine starting, and hoped that the other man had gone on his merry way. Now, as soon as the Lieutenant left, he’d take the long route home, perhaps stopping by the seven-eleven on the way to procure-

“For God’s sake, Crane, I thought you were a half decent spy.”

He exhaled, half-horrified, half-relieved, to have been found out. Abbie’s small frame appeared around the corner, fire in her eyes.

“My apologies.”

She poked him in the chest. “Did you plan this? Did you follow me to the pub? To eavesdrop on my _casual_ drink with Morales? You accuse me of treating you like some sort of pet. Maybe I wouldn’t if you didn’t _behave_ like one.”

He’d been planning to apologise further, to grovel even, but her words had his ire flaring to life like a blacksmith’s bellows to the flame. “Perhaps I wouldn’t need to beg for scraps at the high table of your attention if you spoke as many as three words to me without prompting.”

She opened her mouth and then shut it again. Then: “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

They faced each other for a long, silent moment, and Ichabod’s stomach twisted. He didn’t want this between them, would give his right arm to go back to normal with her. What was normal? He had no idea. But not this. Not this; feeling like every breath was coated in shards of broken glass. Feeling like he would scratch his own skin off with the need to touch her; hold her; breathe her in every waking moment.

Abbie dropped her gaze from his and turned on her heel. “I’m going home. You can do what you want.”

Hands clenched awkwardly into fists, Ichabod made himself take several deep breaths as she walked away, fighting the rise wave of his own helplessness. He waited for her to get a ways ahead of him, then followed. If she thought he would allow her to walk home, in the ever-growing darkness, then she had a thing or two about him to learn.

For a time they walked together, but apart, feet in similar rhythms. Ichabod studied the firm set of Abbie’s delicate back and shoulders, and knew he’d have a battle on his hands as soon as they arrived home. To _their_ home. Although there was every chance she’d change her mind about that as soon as they were in a confined space together again.

So preoccupied was he in his own thoughts; his worries about whether she would ever deign to speak to him again – and what he would do if she did not – that he was caught off guard when she slipped, her toe catching in a loose paving stone. She tumbled to the ground just as he reached her side, panic all but cracking his ribs.

She blinked up at him in the moonlight, face contorted. True to form though, she looked more annoyed than in pain, her eyes sparking with the _inconvenience_ of falling over. “I think my foot might be broken.”

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our brave heroine gets her leg in plaster.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay; life's manic here. Enjoy and thank you for reading!

_Forgetting him was like trying to know somebody you never met_

 

He carried her to the hospital. Because of course he did. Sleepy Hollow General was “a mere short walk away,” he'd insisted.

Thankfully it was late and few people were around to witness one of the toughest policewomen in Sleepy Hollow being carried around by a dude in a long coat and 18th century boots.

Abbie tried not to roll her eyes when they crossed the threshold of the Emergency Unit doors.

“I can check myself in.”

“I’m certain you can, but not on your own two feet.”

He carried her to the counter. Abbie knew she would never live this down if she lived to be a hundred.

She briefly gave her name and a summary of what happened. The receptionist tapped a few things into a computer and asked them to sit in the waiting area, a bemused smile on her face. They were, Abbie thought miserably, probably the weirdest thing the employee would see all night. Maybe all week.

“Was that necessary?” she snapped.

Ichabod eyed her as he set her – very gently – on her own seat, next to him. “Which part?”

“Every damned part.” She refused to look at him.

He merely sat quietly beside her, which somehow stoked her ire even more. Her foot hurt like a bitch, too. She’d broken bones before – her arm once, at three years old, trying to fly from the monkey bars in the local kiddie park – but that pain was in the long ago past, not throbbing _now,_ in her face like a ball of fire, heating up her leg like fireworks.

“Perhaps you should elevate your foot.” He slanted his knee towards her, offering it as a makeshift table to lift her injured foot.

“Perhaps you should elevate your face – away from mine,” she snarked.

He only smiled patiently.  “Not your usual snappy comeback, Lieutenant,” he said mildly.

He was right. She hated that.

Without saying anything else, Ichabod gently lifted her injured leg and propped her calf on her leg. She shifted to make the position more comfortable. To her surprise, the elevation eased the pain in her foot a considerable amount.

Damn it.

“Thank you,” she said at length.

His blue eyes met hers solemnly. “I should have seen you trip earlier. Had I been faster, I might have caught you.”

Her mouth dropped open at the seriousness in his bottomless, deep-sea-blue eyes. “Seriously. You think this is seriously your fault.”

He lifted a hand as if to put it on her knee, but then thought better of it and ran a long finger inside his collar, instead. “We are to protect each other, are we not?”

“Yeah, but – I _tripped,_  Crane. You can’t be with me all the damn time.”

He said nothing to that, but she could tell from the hard set of his mouth that it was far from over inside that complicated head of his.

Abbie tilted her head back against the cheaply padded headrest of the hospital chair, studying her partner. Sometimes she wished she’d met him sooner. Sometimes she wished she’d never met him at all. Sometimes she wished…. She could clean forget him.

But it would be easier to cut off her own arm. His strange speech, archaic vocabulary, and steady presence had become as necessary to her as breathing, somewhere along the line. And it discomforted her, and itched at her, more than she knew how to put into words.

 

_Moving on from her is impossible_

 

He called them a conveyance home. The least he could do, Ichabod thought as he carried the Lieutenant – despite her hearty and sarcasm-laced protestations – over the threshold of their home.

Her leg had been put in plaster up to the knee. She had borne the treatment without protestations, to avoid, he assumed, berating him in front of the medical professionals.

Her bare toes stuck out from the ends of the plaster now, looking small and vulnerable.

What he often thought her heart might be like, deep inside, underneath the layers of courage and sass and pride she wrapped herself in.

One day, he promised himself, he would peel each layer away. One by one, until she revealed her beating heart to him, her loves and hates and wants and needs gloriously naked, and he would see her for her true self. The real Abigail Mills, not just the face she showed to the world.

Right now though, she sat grumpily on the couch.

“Perhaps something to eat?”

She looked over and he saw the struggle on her face. She wanted to be snarky, but he saw from the play of emotions on her pretty countenance that she felt indebted to him for bringing her both to the hospital and home again.

“I could eat. Thanks.”

The hour was growing either very late or very early, so Ichabod chose a box of her favourite cereal and laced it with milk and a sprinkling of sugar. Her lips curved very slightly when he handed it to her in the bowl she always used – slightly chipped at one edge.

They had plenty of bowls without chips, but Ichabod thought perhaps she used the bowl _because_ it was damaged. Perhaps because it reminded herself of something inside her.

He knew the feeling all too well.

“You remembered that I had sugar on top.”

He slanted her a look as he sat down on the couch beside her. “As you said recently, Lieutenant, now that we share a roof, I know things I cannot _unknow._ ”

She smiled and spooned up cereal.

“So you’re gonna hang around here until my foot gets better, is that it?”

He arched a brow, amused by her, but overall just incredibly _glad_ that the doctor had proclaimed it a clean break; no surgery needed. A straightforward metatarsal fracture, which rest would heal perfectly in time. “In case you had forgotten, I do reside here.”

“At least you’ll be able to pass me the remote,” she deadpanned.

They sat together in companionable silence as she finished eating her cereal. Outside, the sky lightened as night slowly seeped into morning.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Domestic bliss - well, sort of - between our favourite pair.

_Touching her was like realizing all you ever wanted was right there in front of you_

 

“Your move.”

Ichabod looked over the fan of playing cards he held in his hand. His Lieutenant really had little to no idea how adorable she was, especially when she was – what was the word? Oh yes, grumpy. Out of sorts.

“Come _on,_ Crane.”

It has been three days since her leg had been encased in plaster. She looked frankly _cute_ with the thick white wrapping around her appendage. However, despite the amusement she unwittingly gave him, he ached with sympathy for her. She was a woman of action; not used to rest or stillness, uncomfortable with being trapped, however that transpired.

Sleeping on the sofa couldn’t be fun, either. He had offered – rather gallantly, he thought – to carry her to her bed, but she’d refused.

His Lieutenant didn’t accept help easily, either.

He played a card and she played another right away, besting him. She had become rather good at this game in just two days.

They played a few more hands, but towards the end of the game he noticed her squirming uncomfortably in her chair.

“What’s troubling you, Lieutenant?”

She lifted her gaze, her dark eyes meeting his. “Nothing. Make your move.”

He set his cards down. “We have been through more together than I have experienced with another human being, in this life or indeed, any other. I would hope that you could share any burden with me.”

“Crane-”

“Above all, we are friends, are we not?”

He knew he had played his trump card when she sighed, her lips forming that charming little moue. He was almost certain that she had little to no idea she did it – or how captivated he was by her mouth, generally.

“It’s difficult to wash,” she finally grumped. “I can’t go in the shower. It’s awkward to sit on the toilet. And I can hardly bend to wash my hair.” She shoved a small hand through the locks. “It’s making me… more irritable than usual.” A wry smile played on her mouth. “You must be having a blast.”

“There is nowhere I would rather be,” he said sincerely, rising from his chair. “Perhaps I could assist.”

She frowned. “I-”

“In washing your hair. You will have to submit to being carried upstairs, though,” he warned. “You will not have your hair washed in the kitchen sink like some ne’er do well.”

Abbie smirked at his turn of phrase. “Well, since we’re sharing, I’d do pretty much anything to get my hair washed.” She grimaced as she curled her hand in her locks again. “It feels awful.”

He rounded the table and hesitated by her side. “Now? Later?”

“Now. The quicker it’s done, the less embarrassed I’ll feel. I hope,” she deadpanned.

“There is no need for embarrassment.” He gently scooped her up. Even with the plaster cast, she was such a tiny thing in his arms, her head naturally resting against his chest. He supported her with one arm under the bend in her legs, the other under her shoulders, as he started towards and up the stairs.

“I bet the ladies of the eighteenth century loved being carried around,” Abbie said conversationally as he climbed.

“It may surprise you to learn that I haven’t carried a great many women up staircases,” he responded dryly. _Only those who mattered._ But he didn’t add the words, no matter how heavily they weighed on his tongue.

She waited patiently as set her on a wooden chair in the large bathroom before gathering all the necessary materials to wash her hair. To him, it seemed more beautiful since her return from the catacombs, more full of life, more reflecting of her bold, unique personality.

He gently moved her and her chair back towards the sink and placed two small towels on the edge of the bowl. “Try that.”

She tilted her neck back. “Comfy. Didn’t know you were a hairdresser in a previous life,” she teased.

“I was a dab hand with a cut throat razor.” At her panicked look, he chuckled. “That was a jest. I swear.”

“You cut my hair off, I’ll cut off something else.”

Her lips were curved, but he believed she meant it, so, amused, he silently filled the large, oval sink with warm, but not too hot, water. Her sigh as the water touched her hair and then, eventually, the back of his neck, prickled his nerves. He watched her eyes drift closed as he gently massaged her scalp, running his fingers through her thick, dark hair. Her moan floated up between them, and despite the blatant domesticity of the task, Ichabod’s whole body tightened, his vivid imagination quickly throwing up much _less_ domestic scenarios.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone who reads, leaves kudos, and comments. You keep me going :)


End file.
